High Tech System Marries Flexibility To Fast Response

TAVARES — A 911 emergency phone proposal being debated in Lake County today is a high technology system that can be designed to do just about anything local officials want it to do.

It represents not only a simple three-digit number to call for any emergency medical, law enforcement or fire assistance, but a computer system would automatically identify the caller and address, provide directions and alert the appropriate police, fire or ambulance service.

The system can reduce the time it takes to send out emergency help from precious minutes to seconds. It virtually eliminates confusion over locations and which emergency agency has jurisdiction.

Counties nationwide with 911 systems say it has saved countless lives and makes responding to emergencies in both rural and urban areas more simple and efficient.

Technically, there is no limit to the variations Lake County could choose in establishing a 911 system. Every municipal police, fire department and ambulance service could have its own 911 terminal -- Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP), in communications jargon -- or there could be a central terminal center handling all the calls. There are end- less variations in between.

A 911 system with a central communications center could act as a central dispatching point for all law enforcement, ambulance or fire calls, or it could serve simply as a complaint taker, shunting emergency calls automatically to secondary centers, both city and county, where the appropriate agency would be dispatched.

Alternately, the primary answering points could be scattered around the county with each city police department having its own 911 computer terminal and acting as both complaint taker and dispatcher for its service area.

Either way, someone has to take the original calls, determine the nature of the emergency and verify that it is taking place at the location where the call has been made. Under any 911 system, the location of all telephones in Lake County would be programmed into the computer system so the precise location of any call automatically would appear on a dispatcher screens. Appearing at the same time would be the appropriate police, fire and ambulance service.

If county commissioners choose a centralized complaint taking system, a dispatcher pushing a single button would automatically switch the call to the appropriate city or county dispatch unit. If they choose a centralized complaint taking and dispatching system, emergency calls simply would be transferred from the complaint taker to a dispatch center housed in the same building.

If the complaint taking duties are scattered throughout the county, the situation is reversed. Dispatchers in each municipality would answer the calls initially, sort out ambulance, fire and police requests, then push a button automatically transferring those calls to the appropriate emergency agencies. In either case, the calls can be handled in a matter of seconds.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE SYSTEM

The concept of a single emergency telephone number originated in Europe in the late 1930s, but the United States didn't become interested in the idea until 1967 when a presidential commission recommended establishment of a single number for reporting police emergencies. The following year, American Telephone and Telegraph Company officials said they would make the digits 911 available for the purpose of creating a uniform emergency answering system.

In the early 1970s, the federal government began actively promoting 911 systems. And Lake County first began exploring a 911 system in 1975.

But the initial systems involved nothing more than arranging a common three-digit emergency number. It had the advantage of making it easier for residents and tourists to phone for emergency help, but once the call was made, dispatchers still were required to find out the caller's location, determine the appropriate jurisdiction and then check a map to give police, firefighters, or ambulance personnel directions to the scene.

There was widespread friction about how the calls should be handled, confusion about locations and gaps in the service. And if the caller didn't have time to give full details about the situation and location, emergency personnel were at a loss on how to respond.

To resolve those common complaints, communications specialists devised an enhanced 911 program -- a computer system using the latest in technology -- that instantaneously identified the telephone number and location of the caller and could automatically shuttle the calls to the appropriate police, fire or ambulance service. Essentially, human error was removed from both sides of an emergency call.

The first enhanced 911 system was developed for Chicago in 1976. The system is more expensive to build and operate than a basic 911 system, but virtually all communities considering building 911 systems in the 1980s, including Lake County, have chosen the enhanced version.